finance his campaign, the headache of the candidates

As the presidential election is fast approaching, the financing of the campaigns of the various candidates is a recurring subject. Whether meetings in large halls, large gatherings, field trips, campaigning costs millions of euros. The State reimburses 47.5% of the costs for candidates who exceed 5% of the vote, against a maximum of 800,000 euros for those below this threshold.

But the candidates must be able to advance the money. Marine Le Pen had to go through a Hungarian bank to obtain a loan of 10.5 million euros. No French bank had accepted. “It should not be left to the banks and the executive to decide who can be a candidate or not“, believes the candidate of the National Rally. The credit mediator, a senior official, is in charge of facilitating the relationship between the banks and the candidates. “Is the reputation, the image, the notoriety of the party good, has it been affected in the past years by more or less complicated cases?“, explains Jean-Raphaël Alventosa, who holds this function. Emmanuel Macron had mentioned a bank of democracy, which had convinced François Bayrou, president of the MoDem, to join him in 2017. The project did not see the light of day.